


Dreams of The Future, Memories of the Past

by FestiveFerret



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And Isn't Shy About It, Children's Hospital Visits, Depression, Feels, Get Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Motorcycle Repair, Optimistic Tony, Pining, Post-The Avengers (2012), Recovery, Romance, Steve Does Digital Art, Steve Struggles with The Future, Tony has a crush, self-destructive behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 17:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12137622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret
Summary: Tony’s got a pretty serious crush on Steve Rogers, how could he not? Dude is smoking hot. So when he invites Steve to come live at the tower with him and Bruce after the Chitauri, he’s expecting it to be all fantasies, flirting, and How It’s Made marathons. Instead, he finds himself with an unhappy, angry Steve on his hands, and it isn’t long before he finds out that the object of his affection is hiding a worrying secret.





	Dreams of The Future, Memories of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ashes0909 for the lovely beta and for being lovely! <3

 

Tony swung into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut behind him. Watching Thor disappear in a crackle of blue lightening, with Loki and the tesseract in tow, was a very special kind of satisfying, and he was still feeling giddy from the experience. Bruce buckled his seatbelt in the passenger seat and gave Tony a little nod. Tony’s hand hovered over the gear shift, but movement in front of him caught his eye: Steve, settled onto his bike. Tony paused for a moment, pondering, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed.

In front of him, Steve leaned forward on the bike then paused. He sat back, staring down at his chest, then began tapping his pockets. Tony waited, phone ringing placidly in his ear. It took five rings for Steve to dig his phone out of his pocket. He looked at the screen and his face screwed up in confusion, then he twisted on the bike to face the car behind him.

Tony gave him a little wave with his free hand then pointed to the phone. It clicked on and Steve brought it to his ear, still turned to face the car. “What?”

“Hey, buddy, what’s up?”

“Tony, I just spoke to you three minutes ago. We said goodbye. Why are you calling me?”

“Well, as much as I love watching you leave -” Tony tilted his head to better enjoy the view of Steve’s long legs spread over the bike seat. Steve huffed over the line. “- I hate to see you go. Brucie Bear and I are heading back to the tower to watch Mean Girls in our yummy sushi pajamas and paint each others nails. You in?”

“I -” Steve spluttered for a moment, peering back at Tony as if trying to read his expression from fifteen feet away. “I already told you, I’m leaving New York. We just talked about it.”

“Yeah, but that’s a stupid plan.” Tony waved his hand dismissively. “Come party at the frat tower with us. We’ll pull pranks on the girls’ tower next door.”

“There is no girls’ tower next door,” Bruce pointed out.

“Fuck it, we’ll build one. So you in? Yes? Good.”

“I -” Steve turned back away for a moment, blocking his face from Tony’s view. The phone fell quiet, and Tony tensed, preparing himself for disappointment. Then Steve shrugged, and Tony could hear him sigh. “Sure, whatever. It’s not like I have anywhere I have to be.”

“Amazing, perfect. I’ll have JARVIS warm up the radio and start forwarding your telegrams. See ya there!” Tony hung up the phone and tossed it into Bruce’s lap before speeding away from the curb. A moment later, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Steve coming up behind him. Tony grinned as the wind whipped his hair back. This was going to be awesome.

 

**

 

They pulled into the garage together. Tony slotted the car into its place and heard the rumble of the bike cut out across the aisle. Steve hovered by its side, fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket and eyeing Tony with concern. “Come on, kids, let’s go.” Tony lead the way to the elevators and the three of them piled in. “So, Mean Girls, pajamas, and nail painting might have been a ruse to get you here, but I am still very yummy, and we can still have sushi. You like?”

Bruce nodded, eyes fixed on his phone. He’d had an evil genius moment in the car and had spent the entire trip over furiously taking notes. Tony glanced at the screen. Ion implantation and vibranium. Nice.

He raised his eyebrows at Steve in question.

“Oh, I’ve… never had sushi.”

Tony clapped Steve on the arm making him flinch. “It’s good, you’ll like it. I’ll order a bit of everything and you can figure out what you like. J?”

“Delivery will be in thirty-five minutes, Sir.”

“Thanks, pal.” The doors slid open and Tony stepped out, the other two men following in his wake. Bruce immediately turned off towards his lab, nose still glued to his phone. “Don’t mind him,” Tony said, with a wave. “He’s in the zone. He will reappear, much like a meerkat out of its hole, when he smells food.”

“Okay.” Steve came to a stop next to the couch and frowned at it.

“So… some renovations need to be done, but Bruce and I have just been crashing on this floor. We’ve got a bunch of rooms here, kitchen, TV the size of Hulk’s undies, my workshop is down the hall that way and Bruce is - well, you saw him wander off towards Brucieland. When the work is done, we’ll all have more space, plus extra for the spy twins and Pikachu, if he ever comes back. You know, just in case. But uh, yeah, plenty of room here. Snag whatever room you want. Mine is the one with the “Caution: Radioactive” sign on the door. Feel free to pick that one, I don’t hog the covers.” He shot Steve a wink, but only got raised eyebrow in return.

Steve shuffled off down the hall with his depressingly small duffle bag and Tony leaned against the back of the couch, considering. They’d had their disagreements, sure, but Tony liked a challenge. He liked how easily Steve would quip back with him, he liked how stalwart and forthcoming he was, and damn did he like his ass in those pants. It was an instant and solid crush, the moment they met, and Tony was happily wallowing in it like a pig in very expensive, designer muck. Tony loved this part: the flirting, the butterflies - yes he still got butterflies at 42, and he had no shame in admitting it thankyouverymuch - the blatant attempts to get attention. Having Steve, in all his 40s-styled, blue eyes, and holy shit biceps glory, staying at the tower was going to be the best kind of fun and games.

As it turned out, Steve was neither fun nor games.

He barely spoke at dinner, picking at the sushi, which he eyed with great concern, and it only got worse from there. After a week of living together, Tony was starting to feel uncertain about the whole thing. Not that he didn’t still like Steve - if anything he liked him more - but Steve didn’t seem happy here, and Tony was starting to feel a little bit like his jailor.

Steve was quiet and withdrawn and getting him to participate in anything was like pulling teeth. Tony knew it could be hard, breaking into a dynamic duo, and he and Bruce fit together so easily, but he tried really hard to include Steve as much as he could, with little success. Bruce was a private person, who needed a lot of alone time, and Tony seized those opportunities to seek out Steve. More often than not, however, he was gently rebuffed.

Steve spent a lot of time in the gym, and, as far as Tony could tell, a lot of money on heavy bags. It was one of the areas under construction, but Steve had a hook in the ceiling and a closet full of equipment. And maybe it was all for the best because when a bag inevitably gave up the ghost under his assault he could just chuck it out of the very large hole in the wall and into the construction dumpster below. Though, when Tony had suggested this, Steve had said, “Come on, Tony, I might hit someone. That’s not safe.” To which Tony had replied that he would no longer be asking Steve to help him with the pranks when he got around to building the sorority tower next door.

When Steve wasn’t in the gym or in his room, he was camped out on the living room couch, reading. He insisted on real, tree-murdering, paper books covered in actual ink, despite Tony’s general shock and horror at paper being allowed in his 21st-century tower. Steve bought the books himself, almost all classics and nothing written after 1934, and donated them to the local Goodwill when he was done.

Unable to resist the opportunity to bask in Steve’s sexy, sexy aura, Tony took to claiming the couch opposite, tapping away on his tablet, or arguing with hologram plans for the tower redesign.

“Should we have an entire floor that’s one giant hot tub in the winter and a ski slope in the summer?” Tony chuckled to himself but to his surprise, Steve slammed his book closed against his thigh.

“Why are you asking me?” he snapped out, making Tony reel back in surprise.

“It was just a joke.”

They hung in silence for a moment, the air heavy between them, then Steve took a shaky breath and rubbed his hand over his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that, I’m just tired.”

“Ok.” Tony didn’t move, eyes on Steve’s slumped form. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

“No, it’s fine. Sorry. Tell me more about your plans. This book was starting to irritate me anyway.” Steve tossed it to the other end of the couch and tipped back until the back of his neck rested over the arm of the couch, one arm thrown across his eyes.

Tony began describing his plans for the renovation and Steve’s expression relaxed bit-by-bit until he was back to his normal self, though Tony was starting to notice that Steve’s normal self came with a tightened jaw line, hunched shoulders, and cool eyes.

Over the next few weeks, Tony tried everything in his arsenal to thaw Steve, but though he often smiled back when Tony joked, it didn’t meet his eyes, and though he rolled his eyes affectionately when Tony flirted, his jaw twitched a little tighter. Tony tried to charm him, pester him, and even bribe him, but Steve remained unmoved, scowling on the couch, in the gym, or in his room, and nothing more.

It didn’t stop Tony from pushing, pulling, and generally following Steve around like a lost puppy. It also didn’t stop him from flirting outrageously at every opportunity. Tony was sitting in the kitchen with a bowl of granola one morning, when Steve wandered in, in his workout gear.

Steve mostly wore clothes that looked like they were pulled straight out of a 1932 issue of Sears catalog, but even he seemed to accept that exercise fabric technology had advanced amazingly. Someone had failed to inform him that he was no longer an XS, however, and the result was eye-popping.

“Holy shit, how early do you have to get up to paint that on?” Tony asked around a mouthful of cereal.

“What?”

“I’m just saying a prayer of thanks to the gods of spandex. Seriously, that image will be with me all day.”

Steve frowned. “What do you do that for?” he asked.

“What? Flirt with you?”

Steve shrugged. “I guess.”

“Well, my little snow angel, I flirt with you in order to… flirt with you. Wait, have you not read my wiki? I thought it was a well-known fact that I struggle to keep it in my pants.”

“Oh.” Steve considered him for a moment. “I just thought - I mean, you always seem to be with women…”

“A hateful, slanderous falsehood perpetrated by a biased media. I’m as flexible as Black Widow’s yoga pants. They just don’t print pictures of me with guys.”

“Oh,” Steve repeated, eyes snapping back down to his running shoes.

Tony leaned towards him a bit, softened his voice. “I can stop, you know. If it makes you uncomfortable. It just kind of spills out of me when I’m around people I like. But I can show restraint. Maybe. Pretty sure I showed restraint once, at least. In - uh - 1983? So, I can try?”

“No, no. It’s okay.” Steve face went up in flames like he’d been doused in lighter fluid. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t making fun of me,” he finally managed to mumble out, then he pulled his shoes on without untying them and bolted from the room.

 

**

 

Tony pushed the elevator call button, air-guitaring his way through the last few bars of Symptom of the Universe. He heard the telltale _whirr,_ and then the doors sprung open to reveal the elevator already occupied.

“Whoa.” He stopped mid-strum. Steve leaned against the back wall, hat pulled down over his eyes and hands in his pockets. “Wait a minute, what time is it?”

“It is 3:32 in the morning, Sir.” JARVIS helpfully supplied.

“Jesus, what are you doing coming home now?”

Steve shrugged. “I was just driving around. I don’t need much sleep these days. What about you?”

Tony tumbled into the elevator and it started to bring them up to their floor. “Oh, I was in the upper garage working on one of my cars. It soothes me.”

Steve tipped his head, but his face was in shadow and Tony couldn’t see what he was looking at. “What is that all over your shirt?”

Tony looked down. The arc reactor shone through the fabric of his thin, not-so-white-anymore tank. “Uh, motor oil?”

“The green stuff.”

“Oh, that’s smoothie.” Tony beamed. “DUM-E and I upgraded the blender. It was a resounding success but if you ask him to make one do be aware that the first two rows are a splash zone.”

“Duly noted.”

“So what have you been up to? Sneaking in at this hour, I’d think you had a secret nighttime friend.” Tony winked.

Steve shifted against the wall, tipping his face further into the shadows. “Nope. Just driving around, like I said.” There was something tense and unsteady about his voice, and it dug into Tony’s chest and made him unwilling to let it go. He leaned across the small space to get a look at Steve’s face, making him twitch away.

“What is up with you?” Tony reached out and plucked the hat off Steve’s head. Steve snatched at it, but missed, turning into the light. Tony’s jaw dropped. Steve looked like he’d been hit by a truck which had then stopped and backed over him a few times for good measure. Both his eyes were circled with ugly, black bruises, his cheek had a large gash across it that was dripping blood down his neck. His lip was split and swollen. Purple-yellow bruises were dotted over every part of his face that wasn’t bleeding, abraded, or otherwise battered. “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?”

Steve finally got his hands on his hat and pulled it out of Tony’s grip, smooshing it back on his head and crossing his arms. Now that Tony was looking he could see Steve’s clothes were dirty and rumpled. The hands he’d been hiding in his pockets were no better than his face, knuckles looking as if they’d come out of the wrong end of a disagreement with a super-powered cheese grater. “It’s not a big deal,” Steve mumbled.

“Not a big deal? You look like you got dragged backwards through a chipper shredder! Did you crash your bike?”

“I’m fine, Tony. Drop it.”

“Steve. You are not fine. You are bleeding on my very expensive carpet.”

Steve shifted against the wall, then dropped his gaze to the floor where a few specks of red marred the perfect, cream-coloured carpet. “Sorry.”

“I really do not give a shit. I was just proving my point. What happened? Does the bike need work? Do you need to go to the hospital? Do you need, like, first aid? Does Tylenol even work on you? Something stronger maybe. Morphine? I don’t have any, but I can get some - don’t ask me how -”

“Tony!” Steve snapped, cutting him off. “Just. Drop. It.” Steve’s words crackled with barely contained rage and Tony found himself shrinking back to the other side of the elevator unconsciously.

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Well, stop it. I never asked for your help,” Steve whipped out, charging out of the opening elevator doors, with a barely perceptible limp, and disappearing down the hall to his room.

Tony was left gaping after him, horribly confused and more than a little worried.

 

**

 

The next morning, Tony spent nearly an hour working himself up to corner Steve and make him tell him what happened. He had a whole speech planned about teammate-ery and not hiding things - a point on which he knew he wouldn’t be leading by example - and trusting your friends to be there for you.

And then Steve walked in.

He was the picture of perfection, as usual. The cuts and bruises were gone, his eyes were clear, his hands were clean, and his gait was back to normal. Tony stared as Steve grabbed a bowl and served himself cereal, apparently going with the “pretend it never happened” approach.

If it even _had_ happened. It wouldn’t be the first time Tony had had a fantasy so real he struggled to remember the next day if it had actually been in his head or not. It was a weird thing to imagine, though. He’d read Steve’s SHIELD files back to front and they’d never really had a chance to test Steve’s healing abilities in any kind of scientific way; it might be possible. He definitely healed faster than most people and his injuries last night had been fairly superficial. Maybe one night was really all he needed.

Either way, when faced with a pristine and cheerful morning Steve, Tony lost his nerve. He finished his breakfast in silence then shuffled off to his workshop and drowned his worry and confusion in AC/DC and the whir of a power drill.

And he would have eventually forgotten about if he hadn’t caught Steve looking like that twice more. The first was in the elevator again. This time, Steve didn’t say anything, just slumped against the far wall, not bothering to hide his mangled fingers as he flipped through his phone. The second was in their shared kitchen. Tony was in the middle of an all-nighter and was heading up to get some coffee - maybe in a syringe for direct-to-vein application - and Steve was leaning over the kitchen sink, spitting blood.

“So, can you regrow teeth as well, or just heal the little things?” Tony had bit out with more venom than he intended. Steve huffed out something that sounded an awful lot like “fuck off” under his breath and stomped off down the hall.

Tony struggled with what was an appropriate amount of cyberstalking before giving in to genuine, deep concern and asking JARVIS to let him know the next time Steve was heading out late at night. If Steve caught him, and hated him for it, so be it; it wasn’t like he had a shot at making his not-so-little-anymore crush into something reciprocated. Sometimes it seemed like Steve liked him, but a lot of the time it felt sadly like the opposite. Tony clung to the little moments of true comfort they shared, but when it came down to it, he’d risk their friendship to help Steve out, on the off chance he was legitimately in trouble.

It was two more nights before JARVIS gave him the alert. Tony slipped into his favourite subtle-superhero-casual jacket and dark glasses and took the back way out of the tower. He grabbed a taxi and made it idle down the street until Steve’s bike appeared, then he set the driver to follow him. They didn’t go far - to a rough bar in a neighbourhood Tony rarely had reason to be in.

He slipped into the bar after Steve, sticking to the shadows. It was packed with a less than savoury crowd, but Tony moved through them easily, knowing his way around a dive. He ordered a beer on the far side of the bar, away from the stool Steve had settled onto and took it to a dark table in the corner where he could watch.

He nursed his beer carefully over the next two hours, watching Steve knock back shot after shot. It didn’t make any sense, he couldn’t get drunk, that much Tony knew, but Steve was drinking like it was the newest event in the Olympics and he had a gold medal shaped hole in his trophy case.

Tony was on his phone, flipping through SHIELD’s not-as-secure-as-they-thought files on Captain America when a loud voice snapped his attention back to the bar and the reason for Steve’s drinking became apparent. “Asshole? You’re the asshole.” It was Steve’s voice. Tony watched as he got into it with another customer - who was clearly drunk - while Steve played up the effect the alcohol should have had on him. When the other guy hollered, “You wanna take this outside?!” and Steve marched off towards the back door, Tony scrambled to follow.

He tumbled out of the door and tucked himself against the bricks to stay hidden from the two men who were now arguing loudly. The man reached out and shoved, barely shifting Steve, and Tony braced himself for the inevitable fist in reply. But when the first shot came, it wasn’t from Steve, it was from the angry drunk man. He reeled back and slammed his fist into Steve’s jaw. And Steve took it.

Tony watched from the corner by the door in growing horror as the man laid into Steve and Steve just let it happen. He blocked the occasional punch but for the most part, he let every one land. The man shoved him around and spewed some truly horrific homophobic and racist slurs and Steve took it, with a silent scowl. He fought back just enough for the man to think this was anything more than Steve Rogers’ impression of a boxing dummy, but Tony had seen him fight, knew what he was capable of, and this was nothing.

Tony debated stepping in, but he knew Steve wasn’t being permanently hurt - knew from experience - so he decided to let it play out instead of barging in and potentially getting hurt himself. He wanted to see what Steve was doing, why he was holding back so much. Getting in a fight with some dickbag in a bar, Tony could see that, but then to just take a beating? Why?

He flinched as the asshole’s fist connected with Steve’s cheek and there was a horrible cracking noise. Steve was bleeding and bruised. He spit a mouthful of blood out onto the sidewalk as the man took another swing.

This one Steve stopped.

His hand snapped up and caught the fist an inch away from his face. Tony could see the man’s eyes widen at the force behind the move and he staggered back a half step. Steve’s knuckles whitened around the man’s fist and he cried out in pain. Steve leaned forward and whispered something in the man’s ear. The longer he spoke, the more twisted the man’s face became until he was practically sobbing. When Steve finally dropped his hand, his assailant whimpered, clutched his fist, and tore out of the alley.

Steve slumped against the far wall, sliding down until he hit the floor, his chest heaving with rasping breaths. He spat out another mouthful of blood and swiped the back of his hand across his cheek, leaving a dark, red trail in its wake. Tony took a steadying breath, a little afraid of what he was about to face, and stepped out of the shadows into the light of the back door lamp. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Steve’s eyes snapped up and he blanched when he saw Tony standing there. “You followed me.”

“Of course I fucking followed you. My friend is coming home beat to a bloody pulp three nights a week. I thought you were part of some superhero Fight Club or something and I wanted in, but instead I find out you’re picking bar fights at some seedy slum and then letting them nearly win? What the fuck, Steve?”

Steve’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “I have to pull my punches. I could kill someone.”

“Wow, you just deftly avoided all of the pressing questions. So, okay, fair, but that wasn’t pulling your punches, Steve. You pull your punches when you spar with Nat, or with me out of the suit, or when the shower in the gym won’t start and you kind of have to smack the panel right above the tap to get it going. This wasn’t pulling, this was… I don’t even know, horrifying springs to mind.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine tomorrow.” He didn’t look like Steve in this moment, he looked like a bloody ghost of Steve.

"Boy, is that ever not the point.” Tony crossed the last few feet between them and crouched down in front of him. He looked even worse close up. “Can you get up?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Sure, you are.” Tony grabbed Steve’s hand and hauled him to his feet. To his credit, he barely wobbled. Tony led him down the street to where the cab was still waiting, meter on. Steve screeched to a halt.

“I have my bike.”

Tony took a deep breath. “Look, I can do the whole ‘are you fucking kidding me’ thing, but we both know how this is going to end so get in the fucking cab. I’ll have someone pick up your bike.”

A familiar look passed over Steve’s face, and Tony could see him contemplating defiance, but it faded and he sighed, then slid into the backseat, Tony following right behind. The ride back to the tower was a tense one, each silently acknowledging the awkwardness of the driver’s presence, putting their conversation on ice until they were alone. Tony hoped Steve was fully aware of how much he would not be worming his way out of this one. Tony would make the Iron Man armour sit on him until he talked, if he had to.

When the cab pulled up outside the tower, Tony threw a massive wad of bills on the passenger seat then hustled Steve out and up to the door. As soon as the elevator doors closed with them inside, Tony turned to Steve. “Okay, go.”

Steve pursed his lips, eyes on the floor. He thought quietly for a moment. “It’s not fair. I’m so strong, I could hurt someone, I could kill them. I have to hold back or -”

“No. No way.” Steve looked up sharply, surprised. “No, see, I call bullshit. I can get the whole ‘picking fights with asswads only to shut them down’ thing. It’s even - there’s a kind of nobility in that, I get it, I respect that. But letting them do this to you first? It’s not about ‘fair’ cause they never had a chance. You could have scared the cheap beer right out of that guy as soon you stepped out of the bar and, for him, you would have accomplished the same thing. Use Captain America to root out the bullies and give them what for. But no, you let him beat you to a bloody pulp for no reason. That’s not a fair fight. Heck, that looks a lot like self-destruction, Steve, and I know what self-destruc-” Tony paused, rolling the idea around in his mind. “That’s it isn’t it? You can’t get drunk, you can’t get high, you’ve got a public image you don’t want to sully cause it means something to people, but you’re only human and you need something. Something to take the edge off. Something concrete to suffer through for a little while. Is that it?”

Steve was quiet for several floors. “You said once - you said you liked me. Was that true?”

That was out of left field. Tony took a moment to process the question. “Of course I like you. I - was that not clear? I mean, I know I’m pretty obvious with the whole wanting to jump your bones thing, but that’s just, you know.” Tony gestured it away as meaningless. “I like you, Steve. I like you a lot. You’ve become one of my best friends. And I’m not good at that, you know, so, well, go us, I guess. Though, I suppose I haven’t been a very good friend if it took me this long to notice what you were doing here.”

Steve looked crushed. “You _are_ a good friend, Tony. I - I like you too. Thank you, for letting me live here.”

“Steve…”

“It’s like you said.” Steve sighed heavily as the elevator doors opened. He shuffled into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Tony grabbed two water bottles out of the fridge and handed one to Steve, if only to give him something less depressing to do with his hands. Steve took it, twisting the cap, but not drinking. “I remember when I first figured out I couldn’t get drunk. I tried. It didn’t work. I didn’t stop trying though. I never drank much before - it made me feel dizzy - and now I could, I mean I had a body that could probably take it without getting sick, and then it turns out it takes it too well. I just metabolize it…”

Tony swallowed hard, then opened his water bottle and knocked back half of it. “Steve I -“

“I hate being here.”

Tony gaped at him, completely at a loss for what to say. “I’m - I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you here against your will. You could have gone, I wouldn’t have minded…”

Steve held up a hand. “No, no. Not here. Living here is fine. I like the tower, as long as I’m inside it and not looking at it.” Tony rolled his eyes and Steve’s lips twitched into an almost-smile then fell again. “No. I hate being _here._ I want to go home. _”_

“Ah.” It all clicked into place. The old-fashioned clothes, the insistence on paper books, the refusal to talk to JARVIS or use any of the technological amenities of the tower. The going out and getting beat up like little Steve used to do before the serum. “Steve…”

“I know. I know I can’t go back. I know this is my life now, and everyone keeps saying, ‘you’re here now, just build a new life and it’ll be okay.’ But it doesn’t feel okay, and I don’t know how to do that, and I just -” Steve’s face crumpled, and he dropped his gaze to the water bottle clutched in his hands.

“Yeah, okay.” Tony scrubbed a hand over his face. He was in way over his head here. “Okay. I - do you need any first aid, or anything? You’ll just, what? Heal overnight?” Steve nodded. “Okay. It’s late and I’m - I had a beer which I really don’t want to follow with something stronger, and I’m tired. I’m not dismissing this, we’re gonna talk about this, but later, tomorrow. If you don’t need anything, go to bed, and I’m - I’ll - Yeah, go to bed.”

“Okay.” There was an unpleasant shake to Steve’s voice.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not. I mean - you wouldn’t.” Tony stuttered around the thought. “We’ll talk tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” Steve pushed away from the counter and turned towards the hallway to his room. “Thanks. Tony. Really.” And then he was gone.

Tony was up all night. First, he put several safeguards on Steve via JARVIS with alerts that would go to his phone. He turned monitoring back on in Steve’s room, though he locked the feed so only JARVIS could see it. He’d switched it off when Steve had moved in, noticing his dislike of JARVIS and the automations in the tower, but tough cookies. He’d let Steve know about it first thing in the morning, but there was no way he was turning it off again. Not after seeing Steve stare, utterly defeated, at a torn water bottle label, with his split lip trickling blood down his chin.

Tony read everything he could about PTSD - some of which hit unpleasantly close to home - and culture shock, and anything else that seemed like it could even remotely be relevant to a man who died in one world and woke up in another. Nothing was quite right, and after several hours of going around in circles, Tony waved aside his massive collection of holoscreen tabs and stretched, sighing up at the ceiling.

“Steve needs to build a life here. But we’ve been going about it the wrong way. He’s been hiding from the future, trying to keep things the way they were, but they can’t be the same. They just can’t. Hey, JARVIS? Open a new file. I’m going to drag Steve Rogers, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.”

 

**

 

Tony almost lost his nerve again when Steve wafted into the kitchen at Good God o’clock, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and with no visible signs of last night’s adventures. But when Tony squeezed his eyes shut, he could still see the streak of blood on Steve’s cheek, the way his face fell when Tony approached him in the alley, hear the sound of the other man’s fist connecting, unblocked, with Steve’s nose.

So, when Steve settled on the couch with a piece of toast stuck in his mouth and a book from the dark ages, Tony shot to his feet. “No way. Put that down. You’re with me today, hunny.” Steve’s eyebrows rose, but he also had the decency to look a little abashed and not fight it. He set the book down and followed Tony down the hall, shoving the last of the toast in his mouth as he walked. “I have a bit of work to do that I could use your help with and then there’s something I want to show you.”

“Alright.” Steve sounded uncertain, fair enough, and like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, also fair enough. Tony had an idea of what he wanted to say, but even better he had an idea of what he wanted to do, so he figured he’d start there and see how it shook out. He was working on the new LILMIS prototype and some of the parts were rather heavy so it was easy to put Steve to work.

It was astonishing, actually, how much more efficient things were with Steve helping out, instead of just DUM-E’s enthusiastic, yet largely ineffective, assistance. The morning flew by and it wasn’t long before they had a solid part of the outer frame for the scanners constructed. Tony found himself a little worried about the next stage in his plan. The workshop was partially to keep Steve busy and partially because Tony could actually use the help; the next thing was entirely for Steve.

“Okay, come with me, my little patriotic peanut. I have a project for us.” Steve had been quiet all morning, engaging with Tony about the work, but nothing else. Tony hadn’t pushed it yet, but he couldn’t let that go on for long before setting a precedent for not talking about it at all.

He led Steve to the elevator and pushed the button for the upper garage, an area where he stored his collection cars and anything that needed work. It housed all his tools and equipment for mechanic work, while the main garage was only for active vehicles and storage. Steve had never been down here and Tony hung back for a moment, watching him wander down the rows of cars, mouth open and eyes wide. Steve reached the long line of bikes and he glanced over at Tony, awed. Tony smiled back and gave him a little nod. Steve stretched a hand out and ran it over the back tires of the bikes as he made his way along the line.

“Wow. I had no idea you had all of these,” Steve breathed.

Tony shrugged, coming up beside Steve and making him startle a little when he noticed. “I have a few brokers who know my wishlist and buy for me if something nice crosses their desk.”

“I’ve never seen you ride one.”

Tony grinned. “You couldn’t handle it, baby.” He pointed across the aisle to where R1200RS stood, partially dismantled. “That’s our date for the evening.”

Steve crossed the garage as if trapped in a tractor beam, eyes glued to the bike. He crouched down beside it and caressed the leather of the seat. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know.” Tony pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it aside, revealing his white tank and the bright, blue glow of the arc reactor. Steve glanced over, his eyes settling on the reactor for a moment before snapping back to the bike. “I only put about ten minutes into taking her apart and then got called away for something - probably something boring with a lot of lawyers and signing of things. Never got around to doing her right. You’re going to help me get her fighting fit again.” If Steve flinched at the phrase, it was slight enough that it may as well have been a breath in, but Tony watched him closely anyway, pulling up a small, rolling stool and settling in on the other side of the bike. He scooched forward until he could fold his arms across the seat and set his chin on them, peering down to where Steve knelt on the other side. “Well?”

“I don’t know where to start,” Steve admitted. “It’s all so… modern.”

“JARVIS will help.” Tony flicked his hand and the internals of the bike appeared in a hologram above them.

“Oh,” Steve breathed, and Tony was started to realize that when it came to Steve Rogers, “oh” could mean no, yes, why, fuck, wow, or all of them at once. Tony held out a socket wrench, dangling it over the seat, and Steve took it. He looked at the plans, and Tony could see the gears in his head whirring as he examined them. After a moment of quiet study, he turned back to the bike and started unscrewing the frame with confidence.

Tony had intended to help, but instead found himself utterly absorbed with watching Steve at work. His jaw was set, but not in the way it had been most of the time over the last few weeks. It was born of focus instead of grit, engrossed instead of in pain. And, god, he was beautiful. Tony tipped his cheek onto his forearm and resisted the urge to sigh. Steve’s muscles tensed and shifted under his t-shirt as he worked the pieces loose, and Tony swallowed back a very intense desire to ask Steve if he could lick him.

Because part of the plan - the Steve Rogers Rescue Operation - was to scale back the relentless flirting. Not only was Steve clearly not interested, he was clearly not in a good place to be thinking about things like that. He needed a friend, not a groupie, and Tony could be that. Really. He could. Try. Even as he praised himself for his self-control, Steve leaned over to zoom in on part of the plans and his shirt rode up, revealing a strip of perfect smooth skin, curled over the jut of his hipbone. Tony swallowed. This was going to be hard. In more ways than one.

Steve worked in silence for a while.

“Peggy liked my bike,” he suddenly supplied out of nowhere. It was an awkward invitation to talk, but a clear one, and Tony wasn’t about to let it fly by.

“Was it the same as the one you have now?”

“Similar. It was the closest I could find. Not the same though.”

“Too close, but not close enough?” Tony asked, and Steve sighed. “You get it, right? Why you freaked me out last night? You're not an idiot, you have to know what you're doing.”

Steve set the wrench down and wiped the back of his hand over his brow, leaving a delightful streak of grease across his forehead. Disgustingly, Tony had the urge to follow it with his tongue. “I know. I – I know.” His voice was flat, expressionless, but his face was lit up with pain, brow screwed tight and mouth a hard line. Steve reached out and prised apart two pieces of the engine casing, then set them aside. “I think – sometimes it feels like I died for no reason. Which is weird, because I didn't actually die. But I woke up and the first thing they told me – after a series of poorly thought-out lies – was that the tesseract was back and in the wrong hands. Everyone else seemed to think that it was reasonable, after seventy years, to have to face it again, but no one there had lived through it the first time, except me. And for me it was only a few weeks ago that it all happened. I died for nothing. I lost Peggy for nothing. And then I feel guilty for feeling like that.”

“You saved lives, Steve. So many lives. I've read every file SHIELD has on you, every scrap of information my dad saved. Was it a permanent fix? No. You can't really permanently get rid of evil, it seems. But you saved people. And the people you saved spent the seventy years that you were trapped in ice living their lives, falling in love, having kids, inventing things...”

Steve caught Tony's eye, something heavy in his gaze, and they hung there for a moment, quiet. Eventually, Steve turned back to the bike and continued his systematic disassembly with relaxed, focused attention. When Steve reached a bit of the engine he couldn’t tease apart, Tony sat back on his stool, tossed his feet up on the seat of the bike and opened Words With Friends on his phone. Rhodey was kicking his ass. “They didn’t make it in one piece,” he offered helpfully.

Steve glared up at him.

Over the next few days, they continued with the same routine. Steve would help Tony in the workshop for a few hours, they'd break for lunch, and then they'd work on the bike. Or rather, Steve would work on the bike and Tony would stare with increasingly doe-eyed fascination. By the end of the week, Tony was feeling a bit biceped-out and decided to suggest something different. They sat in the kitchen after a good workout shifting around pieces of the scanner casing for LILMIS, munching on salt and vinegar chips and turkey sandwiches.

“I think we might need to look at the alternator,' Steve suggested around a mouth of whole wheat and mayo.

“You draw, right?” Tony asked, his mind still following his own train of thought instead of jumping on the tracks with Steve’s. Steve frowned at him for a moment then shrugged.

“Not really. I have some stuff. SHIELD gave me some supplies pretty early on, but I’ve never used them. I hauled it all out a couple times, but...” He shrugged again.

“What did they give you?”

“Paper, pencils, some charcoals, that kind of thing. I used to get struck with inspiration all the time, almost _had_ to draw, or I’d feel like I was going crazy. Guess that’s not me anymore.”

Tony scoffed loudly and Steve shot him a look. “Come with me.” Tony made a beeline for the elevator, bouncing on his toes, excited now. Steve appeared beside him when the doors opened, hastily devouring the last of his sandwich and with the rest of Tony’s clutched in his other hand. “You’re like a DisposAll.”

Steve pouted adorably. “I have a fast metabolism.”

Tony punched the button for the penthouse and they shot up. When the doors opened, he could hear Steve’s sharp intake of breath beside him. Half the apartment was missing, opening out into midair. Shattered glass still covered parts of the floor and all the furniture had been pushed back against the wall. Steve walked across the twisted hardwood until his feet were right at the edge of the broken floor. He gazed out across the city, hands in his pockets, wind whipping his hair around his face. Tony had the gut-twisting urge to grab a handful of his shirt and pull him back from the edge.

“Steve.” He could feel the tension in his voice, and evidently, so could Steve because he spun around, frowning, and walked over to where Tony stood vibrating by the far wall. Tony pulled open a door to his left and walked in. Three of the four walls were lined with giant storage units, some drawers, some shelves, all filled to the brim with Stark Industries boxes. Tony pawed through a pile of the boxes, looking for something in particular. “This is all the boring, consumer-level stuff. I don’t even know why I keep it, but they send me one of anything. Feel free to snag anything that strikes your fancy, but I’m looking for - yes!” He came up with a sleek black box, holding it aloft like a trophy.

Tony hustled them back down to their shared floor. “If we had more space, I’d set you up with your own studio, but for now is it alright if I clear you a spot in the workshop?”

“Yeah, sure. I still don’t know what we’re doing, but I like the workshop.” They made their way back down and Tony carried the box over to an unused desk in the corner.

“J, set Steve up a workstation.” Tony shoved a precarious pile of hard drives off the desk with a resounding crash and ripped the box open, pulling out the large, flat sheet of glass inside. He tossed the accompanying pen to Steve who eyed it curiously, then pointed dramatically at the space above the desk. JARVIS, ever the perfect wingman, chose that moment to flick the holoscreen to life.

Steve stared. “What is it?”

“Sit.” Tony shoved him into the chair and put the pen in his hand. He took Steve by the wrist and guided the point of the pen to the tablet. “Give us a toolbox, J.” Another screen appeared beside the first. “Okay, those are your brushes, pencils, tips, colours, whatever. Select what you want, then -” Tony dragged the pen across the glass and a smooth swathe of green appeared on the screen. “It’ll do pressure, and angle and all those things. Once you master this, I’ll show you how to work in 3D.”

“Oh.” That was definitely the _wow_ one. Tony grinned behind Steve’s head.

“Have fun, I’m going to tinker for a bit on the fiddly, one-person stuff. If you get bored, we can always go down to work on the bike.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

As much as Tony wanted to watch Steve sink into the world of digital art, he really did have things he had to get done and the whole point of this afternoon had been to give Steve something he could do without Tony. It wasn’t long before he got sucked into the familiar rhythm of electrical engineering and when a hand rested on his shoulder he startled up violently.

“Sorry, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going up for a snack. Want anything?”

Tony glanced at the clock; it had been hours. “Nah, I’m fine. No, wait! Do we have any m&ms left?”

Steve smiled. “I’ll check.” He padded out of the shop and down the hall. Tony pushed his chair back and stretched until everything popped pleasantly. He turned and saw that Steve’s art project was still up on the screen. Rolling tension out of his ankles, he stood and crossed the room to look at it. His heart stuttered to a stop.

It was wild, semi-abstract, and vividly colourful, but Tony could tell what it was supposed to be. A massive bank of holoscreens filled the whole top half of the digital canvas, huge and completely covered in a web of symbols, numbers, and blueprints, all flowing together in shades of green and red and blue, popping out of the yellow background. They towered above the tiny figure in the middle who was alive with streaks of coloured motion, back to the audience, both arms stretched wide and high, above his head, driving the calculations and designs in a swirling, twisting dance. It looked like a desert storm of science, with a mad-genius Tony in the middle: The Conductor.

“It’s pretty cool technology,” said a small voice behind him. Tony turned and there was Steve, looking equal parts bashful and proud, holding out a bowl of m&ms, their brightly-coloured candy shells paling in comparison to the artwork in front of him.

“It’s of me.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Maybe I should have asked. I usually draw people. Everyone got used to it - uh - before. But yeah. Mostly pencil sketches. I’ve never really painted before, but I kind of started with this big sweeping brush by mistake and it was neat so I went with it. I like the freedom of it. If you don’t like something, you can delete it and start over so you kind of feel like you can try anything.”

“It’s me,” Tony repeated stupidly.

“Uh, yeah. Do you mind? I can delete it if it bothers you.” Steve leaned forward, towards the keyboard, and Tony’s hand shot out to grab his wrist.

“No!”

Steve stilled. “It’s okay, I was just going to make it a bit bigger, to show you.”

“Okay, yes, please. Don’t delete it though. It’s amazing.”

Steve’s cheeks coloured, a piece of art all their own, as he swiped a hand across the screen, already controlling the holoscreens with expert precision. The canvas doubled in size. “I imagine it big, like this. If it were real. Maybe even bigger. I want the screens to make the viewer feel small. I feel small when I watch you work. Not in a bad way!” Steve hastened to add. “Awed. Like you have this galaxy of knowledge in your head and I’m just one, tiny star.”

Tony turned to face Steve, his stomach doing the can-can against his lungs. “It is real,” was all he could think to say.

Steve shrugged. “I like it. Thanks, Tony.”

“You’re welcome,” he stuttered out, feeling all the world like he should be the one doing the thanking.

 

**

 

After that, they started alternating. Sometimes they would work together, sometimes they would build the bike, sometimes Steve would draw and Tony would work alone, or with Bruce. It became a comfortable routine and Steve seemed to be doing better. Until he wasn’t.

It started in the morning. Tony asked Steve to hand him a certain screwdriver and when Steve reached for it, he knocked the entire toolcase over, spilling its contents all over the floor. Steve froze, radiating tension, then hissed a sharp breath out of his nose.

“It’s okay.” Tony waved at the pile of tools imperiously. “DUM-E will get it.”

“It’s fine,” Steve bit out, too short, too sharp, and he began shoving the tools back in the case. His jaw was tight and his shoulders curled up towards his ears. It only got worse as the day went on. Steve was silent and sullen throughout lunch, brushed off Tony’s suggestion that they go to the garage, and sat down heavily at his art station while Tony hauled out the plans for his next armour overhaul. Every now and then Tony could hear Steve make a little, frustrated noise until he finally snapped out a curse, stood, knocking his chair back with a screech, and marched out of the workshop.

Tony glanced at Steve’s screen before moving to follow him and saw a mess of thick, angry black lines crisscrossing over a small, splash of translucent pink, like a tiny creature trapped in a cage. He flew out of the shop, close on Steve’s heels and caught him powering across the kitchen.

“Steve.”

He spun, eyes flashing. “I don’t need a fucking babysitter twenty-four seven, Tony. Can I just get, like, an hour of peace? Please?”

Tony screeched to a halt, at a loss. Steve spun on his heel and marched down the hall. Tony heard the door to his room click shut, deliberately careful as Steve always was, knowing he could tear an impressive hole into the tower with his bare hands, if he chose to. The lack of slam was actually scarier than Steve’s outburst. It reminded Tony that Steve wasn’t having some out of control, teenage-style temper tantrum, he was fighting a constant battle with a pain and unhappiness that threatened to drown him if he ever let his control slip.

An hour of peace turned into six when Steve failed to show up for dinner. Bruce raised an eyebrow at Steve’s closed door, but didn’t say anything. Bruce and Tony ended up watching a movie together, and Tony spent the entire time tortured by his laser focus in Steve’s direction, wondering when he was going to reappear, and how he should go in after him if he didn’t.

Exhaustion hit Tony hard, despite a concentrated effort to stay awake, and he conked off, tablet in hand, glasses still perched on his face, well before midnight. He awoke to JARVIS’ crisp voice. “Sir?”

“Eh? What?” Tony sat up, blinking and swallowing, pushing his twisted glasses back into place.

“Captain Rogers is getting ready to leave the tower.”

“Fuck.” Tony stumbled out of bed and headed for the door, only realizing at the last minute that all he was wearing was his embarrassingly cheerful Captain America pajama pants. “Fuck,” he repeated. He grabbed a t-shirt off the back of a chair and pulled it on over his bare chest, hoping it wasn’t also Steve-themed. He shuffled out of his room, foregoing shoes and socks out of fear of taking too long. A shadowy figure in the kitchen assured him he hadn’t missed his mark and Tony hung silently by the elevator waiting, giving Steve a chance to turn back on his own.

Steve opened and shut a few cupboards, then turned and made his way over to the elevators. “Heading out?” Tony asked lightly as Steve’s face came into view. He wore an unpleasant scowl, but it gave way to surprise as Tony spoke.

“What - Are you spying on me?”

“Yes.”

Steve’s mouth opened and closed a few times in indignation, then he snapped it shut, frowned, then sighed. “You can’t trap me here, Tony.”

“No. I can’t. You can leave, of course. You can leave forever, if you want to. Or you can go to your shithole bar and get the apple pie kicked out of you then come back and bleed all over my carpet. I can’t stop you. I just wanted you to know, that if you do, I’m going to be up all night worrying about you.”

“I - wha- “ Steve gaped at him. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“You don’t have to say anything. But I care about you and if you get hurt, I feel it. I just thought you should know.” Steve stared at him, rocking back and forth slightly, heel to toe. Tony pushed himself up off the wall and turned to go. “Goodnight, Steve.”

He was halfway down the hall before Steve called after him. “Tony?”

He turned back. “Yes?”

“Are those Captain America sleep pants?”

Tony adopted his loftiest expression. “They were on sale.” He spun on his bare heel and sauntered back to his room.

The quiet pressed heavily around him while Tony waited in his room, the usual hum of electronics silenced so he could hear any movement from Steve. It was a long time of nothing, and Tony was starting to hope that Steve had gone back to bed when the hum of the elevator broke the silence. Tony sighed. Dammit.

A moment later, JARVIS spoke. “Captain Rogers took his jacket off and has gone to the upper garage. He is currently working on the BMW.”

Tony let his eyes fall shut with relief. “Thanks, J.”

 

**

 

“Pep!” Tony shouted as soon as the dial tone clicked off. “I need you!”

She sighed instead of saying hello. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“No, it’s good, you’ll like this one.” Tony kicked aside half of a prototype repulsor drill so he could spin around to the other side of the worktop. This piece was almost there.

“Tony!” Pepper shouted. “What is that noise?!”

He switched off the grinder. “Whoops, sorry. This piece is almost there.”

“Can you save the manic engineering for when I’m not on the phone?”

“Anything for you, Pep, my love.”

“What do you need, Tony?”

Tony set the grinder down and tipped backwards in his chair, pulling up the blueprints with one hand and grabbing a bag of trail mix with the other. “I need a PR event to take Steve to,” he said around a mouthful of cashews. All was silent. “Pepper?”

“Like a date?” Pepper asked.

“What? No! Like an… Avengers… thingy. Look he’s all up in his head and I know there are lots of cool invitations that come my way and I thought he’d like it.”

“Oh. Okay. I can do that. I mean, I can get one of your very highly paid team of PR representatives to do that, but of course you have to call me about it. As I run your multi-billion dollar tech company.”

“I just like hearing your beautiful voice.”

“Right.”

Tony picked through the bag until he had a handful of only peanuts and dried bananas. “God, I wish though.”

“Wish what?”

“That it was a date.”

Pepper chuckled. “Just ask him.” Tony could hear vigorous typing in the background.

“Nah, I can’t. I don’t want to be, you know. With the thing. He’s all -” Tony made a vague gesture with his hand that Pepper couldn’t see.

“Oh, yes, of course, I know exactly what that means.”

“See that’s why I love you, Pepper. You get me.”

“I do not. What I get is a very large paycheck, so I’ve gotten good at pretending.”

“You wound me.” Tony picked through the bag, looking for one of those big weird nuts that kind of tasted like playdough.

“I love you, but I have to go.”

“You never have time for me anymore.”

“Well, see, I’m busy running this multi-billion dollar -” The amusement in Pepper’s voice made Tony grin.

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, go back to your shoe shopping, or whatever, I’ll just be here, sad and alone.”

“I’m sure you have some videos of Steve in the gym to keep you company,” Pepper trilled sweetly.

Tony smacked his hand over his chest and tipped his eyes to the sky. “If wishing made it so. Bye.”

“Bye, Tony.” The phone disconnected and Tony went back to his grinder. About an hour later his email chimed and JARVIS tossed a list of PR invites onto his screen. Tony scanned them.

“Hospital. Kids. Write back and get the details for me, J.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The day of the hospital visit, Tony found himself feeling a bit nervous. He liked these sorts of things in theory, but in practice it felt weird to be surrounded by little kids worshiping a self-obsessed, spoiled brat, alcoholic asshole as a hero. Still, it made them happy, and there was no one who knew better than Tony how to compartmentalize. So he was Tony Stark, Iron Man when he was out doing PR stunts, even if he was occasionally Tony Stark, Terrible Role Model at home.

Steve met him outside, looking twice as nervous as Tony felt. The car pulled away from the curb. “So…” Steve started. “What do you, um, _say?”_

“What? To the kids?”

“Yeah, I don’t really know much about kids.”

“Oh. Nah, they’re great. Just challenge them to an arm wrestling match and let ‘em win and agree that Cars 2 is the best movie ever made and they’ll love you.”

“Okay.”

Steve’s discomfort was apparent when they first arrived at the hospital, and Tony took point to give him time to adjust. He had brought one of his lightweight suitcase suits that wasn’t really fit for anything more than a quick ride which he’d dubbed the “show suit” and he held all the kid’s attention by putting it on and making all the flaps whir and flex. When they were bored of that, he encouraged Steve to pull out the shield, and once the kids, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, were gathered around it, running reverent hands over its smooth surface, Steve started to relax. After an hour he was telling heavily censored stories of his time in the war, moderating a debate between the Cars 1 faction and the Cars 2 faction, and encouraging the little mongrels to stick Captain America stickers to the back of Tony’s suit when he wasn’t looking.

By the time they exited the hospital, leaving a trail of Avengers-themed stickers, colouring books, and papercraft helmets behind them, Steve was actually smiling. He had a packet of crayon drawings tucked in his hand and a calm ease in his shoulders. It was lovely to see. So lovely, in fact, that Tony struggled to keep from staring, his eyes drifting back over towards the man beside him the whole ride home. He was grateful when Steve struck up conversation and gave him a reason to look.

“You’re very good with them.”

“Not too bad yourself. Though, I do feel that the coup with the red crayon bucket was a step too far.”

“You deserved it after you wrote that stuff on the Cap helmets.”

Tony conceded the point. “Kids are easy. They’re not looking for an angel investor for their new line of disposable, wifi-enabled pencil cozies, or a political favour, or a celebrity notch in their bedpost. Kids just want attention.” Steve gave him a piercing look and Tony’s eyes flitted away to the window. “What? You think you’ve got the monopoly on issues, Rogers?” he joked gently.

“I think you’re pretty incredible.” Steve’s voice was light and easy, but Tony felt like an anvil had crashed down on his head.

“Um.” He looked back across the car and found Steve smiling serenely at him. “Stop it.”

Steve chuckled, then leaned his head against the window and watched the city flick by, while Tony watched him.

Back at the tower, Tony let Steve the Hungry Hungry Hippo eat his requisite 9 million calories, then dragged him down to the workshop. “I finished it this morning while you were at the gym with Nat.” LILMIS stood, proud and gleaming, in the square of the workshop they had cleared for her a few weeks ago. Six, flat, scanner casings formed a circular capsule, the centre of which was just large enough for a person to stand, or sit, inside. Like a CAT scan, up on its end.

“Wow, it looks amazing.”

“And now I can finally show you what it does.” Tony steered him across the room to stand inside the centre of the machine.

Steve’s smile was wry. “I was wondering when you were going to tell me that.”

“Easier to show.” Tony manhandled Steve into place. “LILMIS. Longwave Interactive Medical Imaging System.”

“You really like acronyms, don’t you?”

“Shush, you. You know how when you’re working on the bike, JARVIS can show you the innards, help you find what’s wrong?”

“Yeah.” Steve gazed around at the inside of the machine.

“Well, abracadabra!” Tony hit a few buttons and a holoscreen appeared beside the machine with a dense and detailed blowup of Steve, right down to his heart, beating away.

“Oh my god.” Steve’s eyes had gone wide.

“You can come out now, it’s done. Have a look.”

Steve stepped out of the capsule and it started cycling the 30 seconds of imagery it had recorded, over and over. He reached out, then turned to Tony, and when he got a little nod, touched the screen with a gentle fingertip. It reacted the same way as his bike blueprints, and his art station, so he picked it up quickly, zooming in on his internal organs, examining his bones, his brain, watching the blood pump through his veins. “This is - this is incredible. This will help so many people. I can’t believe you built this.”

“We built this.” Steve turned from the machine to stare at Tony, eyes full of something deep and heartstopping. Tony reached out and touched his arm, then told him gently, “Throwing your shield at nazis isn't the only way to help people.” Steve let out a stuttery breath. “Not that that isn't great. I mean the shield throwing alone is very impressive, you've got the arm thing and the terrifying scowl down, and it's only made better by you chucking it at assholes, so, you know, you do you, but I'm just saying there are lots of ways to be a hero.”

“You've been showing me that.”

Now it was Tony’s turn to be gobsmacked. The moment hung between them, tense, and verging into daytime television territory, until Tony broke it with a shake of his head. “Those little rugrats wiped me out. ‘How It’s Made’ marathon and junk food?”

While the popcorn popped, Tony caught Steve looking contemplative. “What’s on your mind?”

“I was just thinking about the kids. A lot of them would have died, back in my day. Some of them without anyone even knowing why. I can’t believe how much that has changed. I know some of them were sick, really sick, but I don’t think any of them would have made it through the 1920s at all and yet, a bunch of them were talking about how they were going home tomorrow, or when they went back to school after treatment… It’s mind-boggling... Do you do that a lot?”

“What? Go do PR visits? Not as much as I should,” Tony admitted. “There are always a lot of requests and I can't do them all, so I say no more often than not. Why, you want to go back?” Steve nodded. “Alright. I'll get you a PR manager. Someone to go through the requests and send the ones you'd like to you. Then you can take whatever you want. Drag me along sometimes, it's good for me.”

Steve blanched, then his cheeks began to heat. “You don't have to do that. You don't have to hire someone just to -”

“Hey. It'll give someone a job, right? That's a good thing.”

“I, uh, I guess.”

“Even if you say no to everything, you really should have someone managing your image.”

“I need someone to _manage my image?”_

Their TV manufacturing marathon abandoned, Tony spent the next two hours teaching Steve about 21st century publicity, the internet, social media, and tabloids. Somehow, in the four months he’d been awake, Steve had managed to avoid most of it, first on lockdown at SHIELD, and then coddled and hiding at the tower. Tony wasted no time in pulling out a StarkPad for Steve and setting it up with email, Facebook, and Angry Birds. “For the cultural context,” he explained, but after that, more often than not, it was the sound of distressed squawking that emanated from Steve’s tablet.

For the most part, Steve took to the internet with great enthusiasm and surprising pleasure. He spent more and more time on his tablet, reading, and now that the LILMIS was done, less time helping Tony work. He still hung out, though, only now Bruce joined them, developing joint projects with Tony, while Steve discovered wikipedia, Reddit, and Know Your Meme.

One afternoon, Bruce and Tony were sorting samples when a small squeak came from the couch in the corner. Tony looked up, snapping up his safety goggles to see Steve staring down at his tablet in abject horror. “Steve?”

Steve turned to face him slowly. “I think I need a break from the internet today.”

“What did you find?” Bruce asked.

“I - I don’t know…” Steve set the tablet down, eyes fixing on some faraway place across the workshop.

“Captain America fanfiction,” Tony mouthed silently at Bruce from the other side of the worktop. Bruce shook his head and rolled his eyes. Steve stood and wandered over to his art station. “According to some scholarly articles I’ve read, he has a very intimate relationship with his shield,” Tony stage-whispered.

“Leave him alone.” Bruce poked Tony in the arm.

Steve looked up from the desk and gave Tony a considering look. “You should see what they write about you.”

Tony clutched his hand to his chest. “Be still my heart, he googles me.”

“I’ll more than google you,” Steve muttered mock-threateningly at his keyboard.

“Tony! You’re going to knock that over.” Bruce snapped his fingers, catching Tony’s attention and they fell back into the rhythm of work.

Two weeks later, Tony caught Steve late at night on the couch with a book held under the glow of a small table lamp. At first he frowned, worried that Steve was falling back into his habit of getting lost in musty classics from his schooldays to hide from the future, but when Tony peered over the couch with a, “Steve?” the other man held the book aloft, brow creased and one knuckle gripped between his teeth, eyes never stopping their flit across the page. It was Harry Potter. Tony grinned and padded off to bed.

They weren’t all good nights. Steve’s temper was still all too easy to set off and once it was off, he clearly found it hard to reel back in. Tony tried to guide him down to the gym when he could see him hitting the red zone, but occasionally that anger was directed at Tony instead, and it was best for him to gracefully back out and leave Steve to work through things. No matter what the day had held, however, if Steve tried to pull on black clothing and a baseball cap and slink out of the tower after dark, Tony was always there to tell him he hoped he wouldn’t go. It stopped him every time. The weeks went on and the last time Steve had tried to go drifted farther and farther away.

And then they finished the bike.

It was a thing of beauty, the epitome of modern, with it’s graceful curving lines and bright chrome. And despite a few cracks about not making them like they used to - usually rebuffed with a “for good reason” - Tony could see that Steve loved it.

As soon as the last screw was tightened, he gestured Steve on. “Start her up.”

Steve sat astride the bike - and yes, Tony’s mouth immediately watered at the sight, but he contained himself. After staring with interest at the electronic dash for a moment, Steve squeezed the clutch and hit the starter. The bike roared to life and Steve turned to grin at Tony, lighting up the whole room. Tony whooped and gave him a thumbs up. Steve switched the bike off and leaned back, wiping his palms on his jeans.

“I can’t believe it’s done!” Tony was pleased to find that Steve sounded excited instead of depressed by that prospect. Tony held his hand out and Steve smacked it in a sharp high-five.

“Ow.” Tony shook his hand out.

“Wuss.”

“So, you want little tassels for the handlebars, or a Dora the Explorer sticker for the license plate, or something?” Tony asked, and Steve turned towards him, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“Just thought you might want to personalize it a bit. We can paint it if you want. Mock something up in your art program. I know we just finished putting it together, but JARVIS can paint the framing pieces if we take them off again.”

“I - um.”

“What?”

“Is this for me?” Steve asked hesitantly.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Duh. What did you think we were fixing it up for? It’s not to replace your other bike, if you don’t want it to. But I thought you should have both. So you can choose.”

“I….” Steve looked down at the bike between his legs. “Thank you.”

Tony waved it off. “Don’t get all weepy on me Rogers. Save that for when I buy you an island.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Don’t buy me an island, Tony.”

“No promises. You get a little appletini in me and I heat up my Amazon account.”

“You can’t buy an island on Amazon.”

“How would you know? You’ve never used Amazon.”

Steve did that adorable pouting thing and crossed his arms. The pose was deeply affected by the fact that he still sat astride the bike, and Tony had to count to ten backwards in his head or risk tackling the man right there on the garage floor. “I have.”

“Oh yeah? What did you buy?” Steve coloured and a grin broke across Tony’s face. Oh shit, this was going to be good. “Ooooh, Steve. What did you buy?”

Steve stayed resolutely quiet for several minutes while Tony tested the effectiveness of eyelash batting, begging, cajoling, threatening, promising, and more begging. Finally, Steve sighed and tipped his chin towards the ceiling. “Fine. You know those Cap pants you have...”

“Oh my god, you didn’t. You bought Captain America pajama pants? That's incredible.”

Steve burst into flames. _“IgottheIronManones,”_ he mumbled at the ceiling. “Shut up.”

“I - I didn’t say anything.” Tony’s heart had turned into a wildebeest stampede and was doing wild, risky things in his chest.

“You were about to.”

“Heck yes, I’m about to. That’s - that’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard. How have I never seen you wearing them? Fuck, I think I might actually be having a stroke. I can’t process that. Cap owns Iron Man soft pants. That’s like - that’s like. I think fourteen year old me is weeping right now and he doesn't know why.”

“They were on sale,” Steve huffed.

“Oh my god.”

“Alright, alright. Will you drop it?”

“Only if you let me buy you an island the next time I get hopped up on Skittles and Red Bull.”

“Fine.” Steve petted the handlebars of the bike idly.

“So, wanna take her for a ride?” Tony asked, clapping his hands together. Steve instantly brightened.

“Yeah? You want to come along?” Steve patted the seat behind him.

“Uh. No. I am not riding bitch to Captain America. I am a very strong, secure person, but that would break me.” Tony pointed across the garage to where the Panigale sat, shiny and sleek. “I’m not going to ‘come along,’ I’m going to make you eat my dust.”

“Is that so?” Steve cocked an eyebrow and grinned.

“That is so very so.”

“Alright. Bring it on, Spaghettios.” Tony laughed at the new nickname as Steve revved the bike back to life. There were downsides to teaching him about modern food. Tony tossed their tools aside and grabbed his leather jacket and helmet from the cabinet by the door. They roared out of the garage, side-by-side, and out onto the busy Manhattan streets. For a while they just messed around, putting Steve’s new bike through its paces, darting through traffic. When they found a long empty back road they pushed both bikes to their limits, pulling up at the stop sign laughing. At the next turn, Steve waved a hand in invitation, and Tony pulled his bike in behind, following. Steve led the way across town, then through the tunnel and into Brooklyn. They rode for a while, down into a quiet factory district where Steve turned into an alley and cut the power. Tony tucked in behind him.

“Where are we?” Tony asked, pulling his helmet off and shaking out his hair. But Steve didn’t reply. He led the way over to a ladder clamped to the side of the building and started to climb. Tony followed. The building was tall, and a fierce wind whipped at their hair and clothes when they scrambled over the edge and onto the roof. Steve looked out over the city and grinned.

“We used to come here,” he said. Tony shuffled closer, wrapped his jacket tight around himself, and turned his face up to Steve’s. Steve’s smile had taken on a pained, wistful edge, but it wasn’t the same kind of pain Tony was used to seeing there. It was softer, easier, the ache of nostalgia instead of the twisting, gutting knife of loss.

“We?” Tony asked.

“Me and Bucky.” Steve tucked his hands in his pockets and leaned every so slightly closer to Tony. “He’d drink. I’d try to drink and end up dizzy and wheezing, or so drunk off of one sip that I started spouting vitriolic nonsense about army recruiting. I used to draw up here too. One time I was so sick I couldn’t make it up the ladder and Bucky just tossed his jacket down and sat us right there on the ground in the alley instead, like it was nothing, like it didn’t matter.”

“He sounds like an amazing friend.”

“He was.”

“I’m sorry.”

Steve was quiet for a long time. “Thank you.” Tony didn’t know if he was thanking him for the condolences, the bike, being here, the tower, or something else intangible that was there between them but Tony couldn’t name. He reached out and gave Steve’s elbow a gentle squeeze.

“You’re doing amazingly well, you know,” Tony said after a while, once Steve had stopped blinking too hard at the chimney and started peering around the city with curiosity. “If I woke up 70 years in the future they'd have to sedate me I'd be so freaked out.”

Steve turned to him in surprise. “Are you kidding? Sometimes I think you live 70 years in the future already. It makes it all seem less bizarre sometimes, actually. Like you're such a creation of the future that it feels alright to be here - when you’re around. I guess we meet in the middle.” Steve chuckled to himself.

Tony turned that idea over in this mind - him, a creation of the future, and Steve, a man out the past, meeting in the middle to muddle through their own kind of present. He liked the idea, even if it made him feel a bit confused and uncomfortable. It was also a relief, knowing that his futurist ways weren’t causing Steve pain. Maybe he was reading too much into it, but he took those words as assurance from Steve that Tony’s blundering, clueless attempts at making him feel better actually had a shot at working.

They stood there for a long time, Tony letting Steve make the call on when to leave. The air was crisping, the sky shot through with streaks of pink and orange when Steve finally turned back to the ladder. Tony was chilled from standing in the wild wind for so long, but he found the brisk drive back oddly exhilarating and when they pulled up beside each other in the tunnel, Steve was grinning ear to ear.

 

**

 

The next time Rhodey was in town, Tony surprised even himself by asking him to take Steve to the VA to meet some people who worked there. Tony knew a lot of Rhodey’s ex-military friends, some worked there, some used the doctors or went to group therapy. It was a group he knew Steve would get a lot out of, but would never go to see by himself, and Tony didn’t feel right being the one to bring him in. He hated to sacrifice any of his precious time with Rhodey, but it was worth it, to give Steve this.

They were gone for several hours, while Tony flitted uselessly around the workshop, feeling nervous for no tangible reason. When JARVIS announced their return, Tony skittered down the hall to meet them coming out of the elevator. The two men were laughing together, then Rhodey reached out and clapped a hand against Steve’s shoulder, grinning. Tony had that funny, twisted up feeling of seeing your two best friends getting along - pleased but a little jealous at the same time.

The “little jealous” turned into full on raging, green-eyed monster when Steve later told Tony about a man he’d met that day. He worked at the VA in DC but was staying in the city for a week or two for some training. Apparently, he was “very nice” and “had some cool stories” and “his name is Sam.” Tony grit his teeth through Steve’s happy rendition of his day’s adventures and tried not to let his feelings show on his face.

It was the first time Tony had seen Steve show an interest in anyone outside of the Avengers and SHIELD, in any capacity. He was polite with Pepper and Rhodey, but had clearly made no efforts to befriend them beyond their connection to Tony. Tony had been worried about his too small world, until now. Now he had the urge to wrap Steve in bright yellow caution tape and hide him in the workshop forever.

It also made him realize that he had no idea what Steve was into. Tony had been enjoying his little crush, all the stuff of jokes and fantasies and asking Steve to reach for things on high shelves, especially when he was wearing one of his vacu-packed workout shirts, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t real. The grin Steve wore when he talked about Sam made Tony suddenly desperate to know which way Steve swung and if there was any reason to have a) hope and b) jealousy, or if it was all pointless.

Being Tony, he kept his mouth shut for all of twenty-four hours before it just spilled out. “Hey, Steve?” He waited until Steve looked up from his tablet. “You don't have to answer this, but are you gay?”

Steve’s face fell, then twisted up and Tony started cycling through all the things he could say to backtrack. “I don't think so.” He didn’t sound upset, just a little uncertain.

Tony waved a hand dismissively. “It's okay you don't have to talk about it.” It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. He never honestly expected that he had a chance with Steve, but the fact that Steve had never outright shut him down, that he even laughed or winked when Tony flirted, had given Tony a false hope. He knew he shouldn’t have asked - Delusionville was a lovely town to be mayor of - but his stupid tongue wouldn’t hold, as usual. He deserved it, really, since his reason for asking was almost certainly one, “his name is Sam,” member of the DVA, and that straight up wasn’t fair.

Steve looked back at his tablet for a moment, then set it down. “I was in love with Peggy.”

Tony sensed more hanging on the end of that sentence. “But..?”

“More like ‘and’…” Steve squirmed on the couch, plucking at the tassels of a blanket that lay over the back.

“So... you like men too?” Tony prompted gently, trying not to make it sound like his whole existence was riding, horribly deludedly, on the answer.

“Maybe. Some men.” Steve shrugged, blushed adorably, then sighed.

Tony chuckled, trying to break the tension. “Yeah, well anyone would go gay for Harrison Ford.”

Steve finally smiled. Tony had forced him to marathon the Indiana Jones movies just the other night. “Or Cary Grant,” he suggested carefully. When Tony laughed out loud, Steve joined him.

“It's okay though, Steve. You don't have to define yourself if you don't want to. I just thought, maybe you didn’t know. That it’s okay. To talk about, I mean. If you want to.” _Please don’t talk to me about how you’re running away to DC to marry “his name is Sam” and raise lots of beautiful, adopted babies._

“Yeah,” Steve shuffled in his seat. “I've done some research.”

Tony’s eyebrow hit the ceiling. “Oh, I bet you have.”

“Tony!” Steve dropped his face into his hands and groaned.

“I’m just saying, that tablet’s yours, do what you will on it, but remind me to teach you about erasing your browser history.”

“You’re a menace.”

“You love it.”

Steve fell silent, and after a moment, Tony looked up from his work to find him looking at Tony, instead of back at his own distractions. Tony shot him a smile and he grinned back, then snuggled down onto the couch, tablet in hand. And it hit Tony with vigorous, gut-stabbing certainty that what he had was now well beyond a crush and full into unrequited pining territory. If his jealousy over “his name is Sam” wasn’t enough to clue him in, the tapdance his heart was currently doing over one little smile couldn’t be ignored. It would be, though. Because Steve knew how Tony felt, and Steve wasn’t even really sure if he liked guys, and Tony wasn’t Cary Grant, so he would shut his mouth and duct tape his heart to his ribs and hope that someday it morphed into genuine, easy friendship instead.

Mail delivery, having such wonderful timing, chose the next day to deliver Tony’s second emotional gut-punch of the week in the form of a giant, flat package stamped all over with FRAGILE in big, red letters. He opened it first thing in the morning, while Steve was still out on a run, and set the contents leaning against the wall of the workshop. He stood and stared at it for a long time, completely at a loss. It was even more incredible at this scale: taller even than he was.

“Oh my god, is that my painting?” Steve’s voice came from the hall.

Tony felt his cheeks heat. “Uh, yeah. I hope it’s alright. I wanted a copy I could hang. Is that weirdly narcissistic?” Tony couldn't pull his eyes away from the dancing display of holoscreens and the conductor’s hands, splaying expressively out of rolled-up shirtsleeves. He could only see the back of the man’s head in the painting, but he knew the expression he wore: a broad grin, the manic joy of creation.

Steve appeared at this shoulder. “Wow. That’s - that’s big.”

“You said it should be big.”

“I did.”

They stood that way for a long time.

 

**

 

Tony hung the painting in the workshop, and even though Steve feigned discomfort at the fuss, he still smiled at it every time he walked by. Tony was glad Steve didn’t seem to catch most of the looks he shot the painting himself, but they ended up being all the glances he was too afraid to send Steve’s way. Any remaining flirtiness Tony had kept up after enacting the Steve Rogers Rescue Operation was banished in the face of his feelings revelation.

Steve continued to improve. Pepper took him shopping for new clothes and while, to Tony’s disappointment, he didn’t come back in skinny jeans and meme t-shirts, his style still shifted more modern. No more khaki’s, pleats or check button-ups. He started styling his hair differently, posting on Twitter, and even let Tony take him out for sushi again - and this time he tried everything.

He kept going to the VA, for what, Tony didn’t ask, but he usually came back looking sad, but freer somehow. Tony was very conflicted over the fact that Steve didn’t mention Sam anymore. His training in NYC had apparently ended and it didn’t seem that he and Steve had stayed in touch, or if they had, it wasn’t often enough to comment on. Tony went through a whole series of irrational, jealousy-fueled explanations mostly involving Steve and Sam being in an epic love affair that Steve kept a secret from Tony because he knew it would break him and he pitied the poor love-sick engineer.

But setting insane mental tortures aside, things were good with Steve. Though he went out on his own more now, he still spent a solid portion of his time stretched out on Tony’s couch with an ebook, or huddled over his art tablet, painting wild, expressive things.

Today, Tony had banished Steve to the art desk, even though Steve was reading, so he could sit on the couch himself and spread the components of one of DUM-E’s circuit boards over the coffee table.

“Hey, Tony?”

Tony pressed the soldering iron to the circuit board, tongue between his teeth as he focused. “Mm?”

“You stopped flirting with me.”

He looked up in surprise and found Steve watching him, leaning over the back of his drawing chair, his ebook forgotten. Tony set the soldering iron down and switched it off. He leaned back on the couch and studied the ceiling intensely. “Oh, uh, yeah. I figured that wasn't really what you needed right now, me being an asshole, so I reeled it back. Pretty proud of myself actually because that's like my default state and I think I'm doing an impressive job. Though when you said ‘it needs to be rough’ yesterday, I bit my tongue so hard I think I could have put a stud through it. Which leads to a whole new line of -”

“Tony.” He looked down to find that Steve had suddenly appeared beside him on the couch, sitting with barely a penny’s width between them.

“Sorry?” Tony felt a bit awestruck without knowing why.

“So... that was why? Not because you - you stopped liking me?” Steve fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt and that nervous movement was so like that night after the bar fight and yet so completely different that Tony’s heart sang at the signs of a better future for the man he loved.

“What? No way. I like you, Steve, so much. Bit too much, really, but, you know, it's fine, I can handle the whole repressed feelings thing just fi-" If Steve’s question had been unexpected, it was nothing to the shock of a fist winding its way into the front of Tony’s shirt. Steve tugged, gentle not demanding, but asking Tony to lean in. Tony gave in to the pressure easily, still babbling mindlessly until Steve cut his words off with a soft kiss.

It was short and sweet, and when they parted they both hung there, eyes closed, noses still touching, a bare breath of a space between their lips. Tony swallowed, his skin buzzing everywhere it touched Steve, his stomach, heart, and lungs all vying for an Emmy for most melodramatic supporting organ. “So, I’m going to say this thing, and you’re going to roll your eyes and call me an idiot, but I just have to make sure that you’re not doing this as, like, a thing, because you know I’m quite painfully into you, and you feel, I dunno, obligated or like you might as well -”

“Tony.”

Tony paused, considering the tone of voice. “You’re rolling your eyes right now, aren’t you?”

“You’re an idiot,” Steve said, with so much affection Tony was pretty sure his Emmy nominated organs were now taking turns exploding inside him like the world’s goriest fireworks display.

“Okay.” Tony’s hand found its way onto Steve’s thigh. “Kiss me again.”

He did. The next half hour was a blur of teasing tongues and gently exploring hands and rumpled clothes. They twisted together on the couch, limbs interwoven and let the minutes tick by, basking in the warmth and closeness of each other’s bodies. Tony felt lightheaded and dopey, humming with every brush of Steve’s fingers over his arm, or tentative stroke under the hem of his shirt.

“I used to think that you were the only good thing about the future,” Steve whispered against Tony’s neck when they had relaxed from making out into cuddling, octopused around each other on the small couch. Tony’s hands tightened around Steve’s waist, and he pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder. “You showed me there are lots of amazing things about the future. Things to try, things to do. A lot of things to care about. A lot of reasons to like being here.” Steve pulled back so he could meet Tony’s eyes. Tony was sure Steve must have been able to feel the pounding of Tony’s heart against his own chest. Steve’s voice dropped even lower. “You showed me that you’re not the only good thing about the future, but, Tony? You’re still the best thing about _my_ future.”

Steve was perfect, but he wasn’t perfectly well yet, Tony knew that. You don’t get yanked out of your life and shoved into another and adjust to it overnight. But the difference between the Steve that lay beside him, ankles wound round Tony’s and nose bumping his, and the Steve that had huddled on the far side of the elevator, hiding pain under the brim of a baseball hat, was night and day. Steve hadn’t fully laid the past to rest yet, but damn, was the future ever looking up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3
> 
> Feel free to come screech at me on tumblr at [festiveferret.tumblr.com](http://festiveferret.tumblr.com/)


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